law1

the principles and regulations established in a community by some authority and applicable to its people, whether in the form of legislation or of custom and policies recognized and enforced by judicial decision.

2.

any written or positive rule or collection of rules prescribed under the authority of the state or nation, as by the people in its constitution.

Law

Denis. born 1940, Scottish footballer; a striker, he played for Manchester United (1962–73) and Scotland (30 goals in 55 games, 1958–74); European Footballer of the Year (1964)

3.

John. 1671–1729, Scottish financier. He founded the first bank in France (1716) and the Mississippi Scheme for the development of Louisiana (1717), which collapsed due to excessive speculation

4.

Jude. born 1972, British film actor, who starred in The Talented Mr Ripley (1999), Cold Mountain (2003), and Sherlock Holmes (2009)

5.

William. 1686–1761, British Anglican divine, best known for A Serious Call to a Holy and Devout Life (1728)

law1

/lɔː/

noun

1.

a rule or set of rules, enforceable by the courts, regulating the government of a state, the relationship between the organs of government and the subjects of the state, and the relationship or conduct of subjects towards each other

Replaced Old English æ and gesetnes, which had the same sense development as law. Cf. also statute, from Latin statuere; German Gesetz "law," from Old High German gisatzida; Lithuanian istatymas, from istatyti "set up, establish." In physics, from 1660s. Law and order have been coupled since 1796.

(lô) A statement that describes invariable relationships among phenomena under a specified set of conditions. Boyle's law, for instance, describes what will happen to the volume of an ideal gas if its pressure changes and its temperature remains the same. The conditions under which some physical laws hold are idealized (for example, there are no ideal gases in the real world), thus some physical laws apply universally but only approximately. See Note at hypothesis.

law

Law

The Dictionary of American Slang, Fourth Edition by Barbara Ann Kipfer, PhD. and Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D.Copyright (C) 2007 by HarperCollins Publishers.Cite This Source

Idioms and Phrases with take the law into one's hands

take the law into one's hands

Also,take the law into one's own hands. Replace the established authority with one's own, as in While the captain was on shore the sailors took the law into their own hands and sneaked the prisoner off the ship. Generally indicating disapproval of doing something forbidden, this idiom was first recorded in 1606.